


Recast

by nwspaprtaxis



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, WandaVision (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Coda, Episode Related, Episode Tag, Episode: s01e05 On a Very Special Episode..., Gen, Implied/Referenced Mind Control, POV Wanda Maximoff, Wanda Maximoff Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:01:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29359935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nwspaprtaxis/pseuds/nwspaprtaxis
Summary: Everything has gone so wrong so quickly; she doesn’t know where to begin...
Kudos: 43





	Recast

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N:** Woo! I got this one in under the wire before Episode 6   
>  dropped and this was rendered irrelevant. So. That appearance at the end blew my mind. 
> 
> A million thanks to **monicawoe** for midwiving this all day until it was ready to be unleashed into the word. Also, a big thank you to the best beta ever, **tolakasa** for reading and cheerleading.

It’s wrong. It’s all gone so wrong. She lies, rigid and still on her side of the full-size bed, not touching or turning towards Vision. He’s still something close to angry at her — she’d be able to sense his resentment even without her powers. _I’m ignoring statistics entirely_. 

She breathes in. Out. 

The house has grown to accommodate her new arrival, giving him a basement bedroom. 

_Long lost bro get to squeeze his stinkin’ sister to death or what?_

Her breath judders in her chest at the memory of his words, his swagger. They don’t fit. His voice, cadence.... They aren’t _Pietro’s_. Even though he’d been the same height as the Pietro of her memory, his build was bulkier, his eyes far darker, his jaw more square, his hair longer and more gray than platinum.... 

Exhale. Inhale…

Inhale…

A stifled sob escapes her. She’d told the twins the truth — she can’t reverse death. Vision’s case had been different — he wasn’t alive, not in the strictest biological sense of the word. She’d been able to piece him together, reanimate him. But to reverse death entirely…. There are limits to her power, even though she knows she has yet to reach her full potential.

She reaches out tentatively with her power. Vision lies beside her, living and breathing, held together with a sliver of her soul. In the shared room across the hall, the twins too, are breathing the still, deep breaths of the innocent. Their sleep is tinged with sorrow over Sparky’s death. She can’t ease their minds, can’t manipulate them the way she can with Vision and Agnes and the rest. Somehow, they are beyond the reach of her powers.

As is the man sleeping in her basement. 

He isn’t Pietro. 

Even when she’d said the name, it seemed all wrong in her mouth, like talking around marbles. 

There’d been no familiar warmth in his eyes, no trace of the shared traumas they’d both endured — the day the Stark bomb tore through their home, the experiments they’d signed up for and burned acid through their veins transforming them into something _other_ , joining the Avengers, up until… until…

She swallows. He’s here. Or at least someone like him is here. 

But, still, she can’t sense him with her power — he isn’t a part of Westview. She’d told Vision the truth when she’d said that she hadn’t summoned him. Doubt and fear slide beneath her skin, settling between muscle and bone with icy certainty. Who is he? Why is he here? Was he like Geraldine — a blip or an aberration in her construct? 

She flexes her fists. She can feel herself losing her grip on Westview, on everything she’s worked so hard to build and maintain. _Peter_ , the thought explodes into her head. That felt better. He was a Peter. She could work with that. She would make it work. She will wait and watch. And if he didn’t conform…. 

Inhale. Exhale. 

The room shifts around her, sliding into the next decade. 

The sun bleeds through the sheer curtains. 

There’s the sound of laughter downstairs — Peter, the twins, not the canned audience soundtrack — and the smell of coffee. 

She rises from the bed — it is a queen, now —

(Exhale. Inhale.)

and smiles at Vision. 

He does not beam back.


End file.
